


that spell upon the minds of men breaks never to unite again

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Arsenic Poisoning, Book: Feet of Clay, Emotions, Friendship, Multi, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26985832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Following his poisoning, Sybil Vimes insisted on seeing Lord Vetinari as soon as he felt well enough to leave the palace.
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin/Havelock Vetinari/Samuel Vimes
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	that spell upon the minds of men breaks never to unite again

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Byron's Ode to Napoleon

Following his poisoning, Sybil Vimes insisted on seeing Lord Vetinari as soon as he felt well enough to leave the palace.

He looked tired, the worried line between his brows a deep shadow, but it was the gleam of triumph in his eyes that made her ask “You were scared, weren’t you?”

Vetinari put a hand over his heart, a brief gesture at the fragility of life. “I think I got very lucky.”

“Sam was up there every day.”

“I don’t know what would have happened if he were not. I’ll try not to keep him from you like that again.”

Sybil hummed skeptically at this declaration and drew her friend gently into a hug. The Patrician of the city let her reassure herself that he was alive and, for now, willing to be looked after. “How are you now?”

Vetinari looked at the sliver of darker brown in Sybil’s right eye, always too aware of the fact that it wasn’t actually possible to look at both of someone’s eyes at once. “I still feel ill.”

“It will take quite some time for the arsenic to clear your system. It binds to blood proteins. You need to keep electrolyte levels and blood sugar stable. Was there gastrointestinal bleeding?”

“You’re so refreshingly technical about these things.”

Sybil shrugged. “Someone has to be.”

“Your husband—“ Vetinari hesitated, he and Sybil had tried to take care of each other over the decades, but it hadn’t been like how Vimes had hovered over him with such focused intensity like he was personally offended. “He seemed very concerned.” That was an understatement. Very concerned people didn’t slam the door if you asked them to leave.

“He cares deeply, our Sam Vimes.” Sybil weighted the word ‘our’ to make it clear that Havelock was included in the possessive pronoun.

“He certainly does.” The question: _About me? He cares about me?_ was forcibly plucked from the air. Vetinari felt that he did not have a right to that question. That he certainly did not have a right to the ‘our’ Sybil offered so openly. He’d been cowering in his own dungeon when they had met and saved the city. He had been semi-conscious as the direct result of his own mistakes when they had gotten married. Whatever illusions Vimes may have sustained about his infallibility were surely long-shattered. 

“You’re going to come through to the kitchen and drink something with milk or coconut because I’m worried about you.”

Lord Vetinari nodded as Sybil led him through the house. He wondered at his own ability to subsume his doubts, to believe, blindly, madly, that he was the best man for the job just because he happened to be the one doing it, even as things fell apart, again and again and again. But it was not as though he had any other option.

“He wants you safe, you know. He says he’s your guard.” Sybil said this quietly but the words seemed to impact like a sidearm thrown discus.

Of course he, Havelock Vetinari, the individual human being, who Samuel Vimes had spent the past week trying to protect and feed and even comfort, was inextricable from what he represented, but that did not mean, in fact it excluded the possibility of meaning, that there was no personal dimension being guarded.

“Does he make you feel safe and challenged at the same time?” he asked, accepting the banana milk drink Sybil was handing him.

She smiled. “That is what marriage should be, isn’t it? And true friendship, of course.”

Vetinari sat down at the kitchen table and dared to hope that there might be a place for him alongside his childhood friend and her husband that he had inescapably, definitively fallen in love with.

“Oh, Havelock, I’m not going to tell you not to cry, but it would be really bad for you to end up dehydrated right now.”

This was so similar Sybil’s typical admonitions to dragons not to explode that laughter and tears nearly succeeded at cancelling each other out.


End file.
